Crimson Bears tennis stays sharp

The Juneau-Douglas High School tennis team finished a successful weekend of matches in Anchorage where they competed against both West Anchorage and Chugiak High School.

The Crimson Bears split with West Anchorage - losing Friday and winning Saturday - and beat Chugiak on Saturday by winning all their matches.

"We looked and played stronger as the weekend progressed," coach Amy Skilbred said of the team's performance. "Our team always does better indoors which his where we play and practice 99 percent of the time."

Seniors Ben Gelotte and Ben Peyton played consistently as a doubles team throughout the weekend, winning all of their matches. Matt Vandor and James Holzenberg also won all their matches while playing mixed doubles, singles and teaming up to win boys' doubles.

The mixed doubles team of Eddie Hurtte and Marlena Sloss split a pair of thrilling, three-set matches against West Anchorage teams, and the boys' doubles duo of Riley Paul and Eddie Hurtte were barely edged in an exciting 1-6, 6-3, 8-10 match with John Hendrickson and John Gutsch of West.

Senior captain Alex Campbell, who won four of his five matches, said he was impressed with the performance of the doubles teams as well as the play of the less experienced players.

"Riley (Paul) and Eddie (Hurtte) really stepped their game up and some of the newer kids on the team did pretty well," Campbell said. "We worked a lot on consistency with a coach in Anchorage, so that's something we can work on going forward."

JDHS played 11 matches on Friday - all outside - at West Anchorage High School where it was sunny and slightly windy. They played 13 on Saturday morning and nine Saturday afternoon indoors at the Alaska Club North.

The Crimson Bears will play at home for the rest of the regular season before leaving for the state tournament October 8-9.